Hit Web Design review: a complete disaster! 178

This company is a total rip, They are still up to old games. They claimed to be a fortune 500 compnay, if they are so great why are they constantly ripping people and businesses off. I had such a headache with them, I wish I would have research the company a little more before purchasing. To date, we are out of 500.00. You would not believe the amazing stories this company has told me in regards to why it was taking so long to add three little pages to my site and host. No to mention, my site is already developed...so, all they had to do was transfer...They could not even do that. However, they continued to bill me a montly hosting fee, crazy...crazy. Then the reprensentative told me he would check to see if I could get a refund. I receive their, "Account Termination Agreement", which stated they would happily refund my money, if I promise not to disclose the information to the public. I wish there was a way, I could add the attachment so everyone can see. Well, I plan to file a complaint with eveyonr possible.

A total disaster

I am a dissatisfied customer. Over ten days ago, I requested an update. As yet here is no one assigned to update my site. I signed(too hastily) a one year contract. I am seeking a full refund.

The service appears to be deteriorating. I requested an update to my website. I have not received any feedback for over ten days. As yet there is no one assigned to make the changes. I signed(too hastily) a one year contract. I have asked the operations manager to contact me yesterday, so I could cancel my contract.This may also be an interminable wait.

Count me as an unsatisfied customer.

Heritage Web Solutions values all of its customers, especially those who have voiced complaints. It is in our best interest to work with these customers to reach a reasonable and fair resolution. In most cases Heritage tries to go beyond what is fair for the company and errors on the side of the upset customer.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for some customers who, no matter what we do, are never truly satisfied. This is especially disheartening, as Heritage has the solid reputation of providing excellent customer service.

Some customers, as illustrated on this complaint website, have resorted to airing their grievances on the public Internet, in hopes of resolving their particular complaint. We do all that we can to help meet a fair resolution to their satisfaction.

However what becomes unfair to us, are those customers who we feel have received everything they have asked for, and more, but then take it upon themselves to have an ongoing vindication against Heritage. To us, there is nothing more we can do to satisfy them. They are who they are. Vindictive and angry people do more harm to themselves than they think they are doing against a company. It is sad but true.

Heritage Web Solutions, with a customer base of over 10, 000, receives less than one half of one percent in complaints. That is an impressively low number compared to the standards of today. We certainly would like to have zero complaints, but that is just not realistically possible. There will always be those people who cry foul, no matter what.

What you don’t see on this complaint website are all the positive emails and letters we receive daily from customers who are extremely happy with the service and work we have provided for them.

Heritage Web Solutions is a good, solid custom web design and hosting company that has an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau and the Utah State Department of Commerce. We are ranked in the top 1% of web hosting companies in the United States and have recently been recognized by Inc 500.

If you feel that Heritage Web Solutions is not taking care of you, I would invite you to contact me at my personal email address at ceo@hwsinet.com, and I will personally follow up on your issue.

Warmest Regards,

Brad Stone
CEO/Heritage Web Solutions.

Heritage Web Solutions values all of its customers, especially those who have voiced complaints. It is in our best interest to work with these customers to reach a reasonable and fair resolution. In most cases Heritage tries to go beyond what is fair for the company and errors on the side of the upset customer.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for some customers who, no matter what we do, are never truly satisfied. This is especially disheartening, as Heritage has the solid reputation of providing excellent customer service.

Some customers, as illustrated on this complaint website, have resorted to airing their grievances on the public Internet, in hopes of resolving their particular complaint. We do all that we can to help meet a fair resolution to their satisfaction.

However what becomes unfair to us, are those customers who we feel have received everything they have asked for, and more, but then take it upon themselves to have an ongoing vindication against Heritage. To us, there is nothing more we can do to satisfy them. They are who they are. Vindictive and angry people do more harm to themselves than they think they are doing against a company. It is sad but true.

Heritage Web Solutions, with a customer base of over 10, 000, receives less than one half of one percent in complaints. That is an impressively low number compared to the standards of today. We certainly would like to have zero complaints, but that is just not realistically possible. There will always be those people who cry foul, no matter what.

What you don’t see on this complaint website are all the positive emails and letters we receive daily from customers who are extremely happy with the service and work we have provided for them.

Heritage Web Solutions is a good, solid custom web design and hosting company that has an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau and the Utah State Department of Commerce. We are ranked in the top 1% of web hosting companies in the United States and have recently been recognized by Inc 500.

If you feel that Heritage Web Solutions is not taking care of you, I would invite you to contact me at my personal email address at ceo@hwsinet.com, and I will personally follow up on your issue.

Warmest Regards,

Brad Stone
CEO/Heritage Web Solutions.

Heritage Web Solutions values all of its customers, especially those who have voiced complaints. It is in our best interest to work with these customers to reach a reasonable and fair resolution. In most cases Heritage tries to go beyond what is fair for the company and errors on the side of the upset customer.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for some customers who, no matter what we do, are never truly satisfied. This is especially disheartening, as Heritage has the solid reputation of providing excellent customer service.

Some customers, as illustrated on this complaint website, have resorted to airing their grievances on the public Internet, in hopes of resolving their particular complaint. We do all that we can to help meet a fair resolution to their satisfaction.

However what becomes unfair to us, are those customers who we feel have received everything they have asked for, and more, but then take it upon themselves to have an ongoing vindication against Heritage. To us, there is nothing more we can do to satisfy them. They are who they are. Vindictive and angry people do more harm to themselves than they think they are doing against a company. It is sad but true.

Heritage Web Solutions, with a customer base of over 10, 000, receives less than one half of one percent in complaints. That is an impressively low number compared to the standards of today. We certainly would like to have zero complaints, but that is just not realistically possible. There will always be those people who cry foul, no matter what.

What you don’t see on this complaint website are all the positive emails and letters we receive daily from customers who are extremely happy with the service and work we have provided for them.

Heritage Web Solutions is a good, solid custom web design and hosting company that has an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau and the Utah State Department of Commerce. We are ranked in the top 1% of web hosting companies in the United States and have recently been recognized by Inc 500.

If you feel that Heritage Web Solutions is not taking care of you, I would invite you to contact me at my personal email address at ceo@hwsinet.com, and I will personally follow up on your issue.

Warmest Regards,

Brad Stone
CEO/Heritage Web Solutions.

Heritage Web Solutions values all of its customers, especially those who have voiced complaints. It is in our best interest to work with these customers to reach a reasonable and fair resolution. In most cases Heritage tries to go beyond what is fair for the company and errors on the side of the upset customer.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for some customers who, no matter what we do, are never truly satisfied. This is especially disheartening, as Heritage has the solid reputation of providing excellent customer service.

Some customers, as illustrated on this complaint website, have resorted to airing their grievances on the public Internet, in hopes of resolving their particular complaint. We do all that we can to help meet a fair resolution to their satisfaction.

However what becomes unfair to us, are those customers who we feel have received everything they have asked for, and more, but then take it upon themselves to have an ongoing vindication against Heritage. To us, there is nothing more we can do to satisfy them. They are who they are. Vindictive and angry people do more harm to themselves than they think they are doing against a company. It is sad but true.

Heritage Web Solutions, with a customer base of over 10, 000, receives less than one half of one percent in complaints. That is an impressively low number compared to the standards of today. We certainly would like to have zero complaints, but that is just not realistically possible. There will always be those people who cry foul, no matter what.

What you don’t see on this complaint website are all the positive emails and letters we receive daily from customers who are extremely happy with the service and work we have provided for them.

Heritage Web Solutions is a good, solid custom web design and hosting company that has an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau and the Utah State Department of Commerce. We are ranked in the top 1% of web hosting companies in the United States and have recently been recognized by Inc 500.

If you feel that Heritage Web Solutions is not taking care of you, I would invite you to contact me at my personal email address at ceo@hwsinet.com, and I will personally follow up on your issue.

Warmest Regards,

Brad Stone
CEO/Heritage Web Solutions.

Heritage Web Solutions values all of its customers, especially those who have voiced complaints. It is in our best interest to work with these customers to reach a reasonable and fair resolution. In most cases Heritage tries to go beyond what is fair for the company and errors on the side of the upset customer.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for some customers who, no matter what we do, are never truly satisfied. This is especially disheartening, as Heritage has the solid reputation of providing excellent customer service.

Some customers, as illustrated on this complaint website, have resorted to airing their grievances on the public Internet, in hopes of resolving their particular complaint. We do all that we can to help meet a fair resolution to their satisfaction.

However what becomes unfair to us, are those customers who we feel have received everything they have asked for, and more, but then take it upon themselves to have an ongoing vindication against Heritage. To us, there is nothing more we can do to satisfy them. They are who they are. Vindictive and angry people do more harm to themselves than they think they are doing against a company. It is sad but true.

Heritage Web Solutions, with a customer base of over 10, 000, receives less than one half of one percent in complaints. That is an impressively low number compared to the standards of today. We certainly would like to have zero complaints, but that is just not realistically possible. There will always be those people who cry foul, no matter what.

What you don’t see on this complaint website are all the positive emails and letters we receive daily from customers who are extremely happy with the service and work we have provided for them.

Heritage Web Solutions is a good, solid custom web design and hosting company that has an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau and the Utah State Department of Commerce. We are ranked in the top 1% of web hosting companies in the United States and have recently been recognized by Inc 500.

If you feel that Heritage Web Solutions is not taking care of you, I would invite you to contact me at my personal email address at ceo@hwsinet.com, and I will personally follow up on your issue.

Warmest Regards,

Brad Stone
CEO/Heritage Web Solutions.

Terrible company. I ended up with a site a 5th graded could do. The whole time they charged me for hosting. I complained and they bascally said tough. I went to another designer and got a great site for half the money, half the hassle, half the hosting and twice as much professionalism.

RUN FORM THESE GUYS UNLESS YOU HAVE MONEY TO BURN.

I have seen these $199 ads and was always suspicious, because the site itself never gave any additional information, so you had to ask, "what's the catch?" The catch apparently is that you can't actually get anything for them for $199, not anything that you could actually put out there anyway. Everything, even the most basic things are charged as add-ons. From the sound of it, it looks like people on average spent closer to $1800 for their websites, and were generally not satisfied.

So the bottom line is that your local freelancer will do a better job for you at a price that is more or less the same, maybe less.

I had exactly the same problem as you except I paid a lot more money. I have my website thank goodness...at the end after several months of frustration and hell, I got it. But I paid through the nose for every last piece of progress. I can't understand how they are still in business. I am surprised a class action hasnt been taken against them yet.

The same money spent elsewhere would have gotten the same result and at a cheaper price.

In case any new readers of this thread feel inclined to give CEO Brad Stone the benefit of the doubt, just scroll through all the comments and you'll see that Brad--or more likely his assistant--simply posts the same spiel over and over every so often with no changes whatsoever to his message. In fact, he has even posted exactly the same response on [redacted].com (/URL removed/#250926) where there are also a great many complaints about Heritage Web design.

I own my own small web design business and my target clients are small businesses and young non-profits. I can't tell you what kind of ringer many of my clients have been put through by web design predators like HWS. I actually know of HWS because one of my clients is at this very moment embroiled with them. Ugh!

Before you ever give ANYONE your credit card number, you should examine their Terms of Service (TOS) in real detail. Caveat emptor, right folks?!

As for pricing, I agree with what others have said. Go to Google Maps and search for a local web designer whom you can actually meet and whose portfolio you like. Or go to Craigslist and search for a listing that makes it obvious it is an actual, local designer. You really cannot get something nice and unique for $200. If you can spend 4-weeks and $700-$900 on your site, then I think if you look very carefully you can get it done nicely (That's about what I charge for a non-e-commerce brochure-style site, and it includes domain, hosting, design, upload, lots of consultation, email exchanges, phone calls etc. But I think I am on the very inexpensive side.)

Hey every one. I want to speak out as a former employee of this company, who has seen first had how this company rips you off. Every time customers call in they are told they need to purchase 'enhancements" and often times the employees are pressured in to upselling. You cannot sign on with this company for the minimum price and get out of there having spent only that amount. The management has a saying that states that every employee is a salesman. If an account manager or a tech support agent doesn't meet a sales goal they are fired. The management of each department get paid a percentage of their departments sales, either 5 or 10 percent per day if the sales goals are met. Account managers are forced to hit a 14000 dollar a day goal, and the manager of that department gets 10 percent of that if it is hit. So most managers use cut throat tactics to hit that goal. This is a department that is supposed to be used to gather content and provide customer service. They don't even say anything if the sales are dishonest as long as the number is there. These people care nothing about you your site, or your future, while working there, I saw people spend thousands with no results, no revenue coming in from their sites. They will sign you up and make you think that they will market your site only to tell you that you have to upgrade your hosting, and get a web traffic directing program going for an extra 39.95 a month on top of the 39 dollars a month you are already paying. These people will straight up tell you that you have to have things to be a success, and it won't happen. They outsource most of their design work with nothing more than a phone call interview to hire people, and I'll first hand tell you that compared to the portfolio, the majority of the designs that come out are mediocre at best. They are so cut throat, that they made me come into work the day after my wife had our baby earlier this year, and threatened termination if I didn't come in. My mother died earlier this year from breast cancer, and even when I told them that she only had a couple of months to live they wouldn't give me the time off to leave the state and be with her. That was what threw me over the edge. All in all I hope that anyone who reads this will spread the word that if you are looking to do web design look beyond the inc 500 badge that they have shining on their door...Inc 500 has nothing to do with quality, it has to do with the fastest growing companies, and the reason they are so fast growing is that they snag you and your stuck in their web. If you accept their terms of service and want to cancel the next day they will send you to a "priority accounts" (retention) department where "supervisors" will inform you that they are keeping 50% of your money per the terms of service, and attempt to stop you from canceling, and if they succeed will be paid a 20 dollar bonus. Bottom line...This company wants one thing, and one thing only your money, and if you sign up, they will take it. Good luck and steer clear of heritage web.

SCAM ALERT

Heritage Web Solutions
1460 N. Moonriver Drive
Provo, UT 84604
www.heritagewebdesign.com

SCAM ALERT
BUYER BEWARE

Sales reps deceive you into believing things contrary to fine print Terms of Service. Fraud? You decide. In the middle of 8 PAGES of fine print Terms of Service with 47 items, #29 says they get to retain 50% of your funds even if you cancel the next day and haven’t sent them any content and they haven’t begun to work on it. Wouldn’t you agree that something so important should not be buried in the middle of 5 pages of fine print?

They say, “why buy your domain through Godaddy for $10, we will buy your domain “FOR YOU” as part of your package, but then they buy it in “THEIR NAME” and if you want it you can buy it from them for $50! Deception? Fraud? Misrepresentation? You decide.

Then when you “catch them” and try to cancel they’ll delay several days before telling you what they’re going to do IF they do anything and they’ll steal keep 50% of your “Total Cost” EVEN IF THEY DIDN’T DO ANY WORK ON YOUR SITE! This one consumer feels he was deceived.

I am so glad I found this website before doing any business with them. I need someone to do some minor updates to my website and their sales pitch is horrible. It reminds me of an MLM or timeshare type operation the way the put you “on hold” to talk with their “managers” to negotiate a lower price. I do not want to give them complete control of my domain names. The agent/account manager is supposed to call me back this afternoon. I know what to say to him now!

Thank you everyone for sharing your experience and I am so sorry that many of you have been victimized by these con artists.

Complete idiots!
They burned me for over $6000 and please do NOT use these people.
4-6 weeks became 4-6 months and all I could do was pay them off and go somewhere else.
They are in Provo Utah in a Rat hole of a building that smells and most of there employees are...
Just stay away and be thankful you found this before signing up with them.
They give the web a bad name.

Like the rest of you, we were schmoozed by the sales department too. After months or prodding, calling (with no response) they finally sent us the link to check their progress. Not only was the website a mess, we disovered quite by accident in our review of the website that Heritage had in fact farmed out our project to a company in another country! We were given a full refund when we contacted CEO at Heritage and told him in no uncertain terms we intended to drive to Provo Utah and pursue our case in small claims court. It was a matter of principle, we were prepared to go and we had the screen shots of the mess the website was in. Screen shots of the website is a perfect way to document the shabby work by these kinds of con artist companies. SMALL CLAIMS COURT WORKS IF YOU ARE ORGANIZED AND COME PREPARED WITH PROOF OF YOUR CLAIM. Good luck to you!

Thank you all for your warnings. I am a programmer researching Heritage Web Solutions and it is obvious I do not want to associate with such business practices.

My personal advice for people seeking a website is to look locally first in your own town or nearby city where you can visit the web design firm in person. Preferably find someone who will give you an estimate and contract when doing business so that your price is locked in and they will not be able to slid extra costs in.

http://www.heritagewebdesign.com/tos.html... Need I say anymore? google search... do your research first.

Wow I'm sorry to hear about all of your problems. I am a freelance web designer and I saw an ad for Heritage Web Solutions online, they were looking to hire freelance web designers like my self that could work on their web projects. I figured that would be cool for me to make some extra money on the side, but after reading your article and finding all these complaints online about this company. I will not be doing any design work for them. I will keep working directly with clients. Thanks for the article.

It's difficult for a freelancer to compete against big companies like Heritage web solutions because they offer clients dirt cheap prices with hidden fees. I always try to focus on quality
clients appreciate the completed product more.

if your ever in the market for a custom website here is a link to my
online www.thegnrgroup.com

The problem here is that small businesses tend to be very susceptible to pricing when considering a very important part of their business model. A website is a marketing vehicle. Therefore the design, architecture, color, text, navigation, usability and everything you could think of is important. Not how much for 5 pages. A website design typically takes about 40-80 hours. If this is the case and someone offered you a web design for $199 for the 1st page and $99 each additional page then you should be very very skeptical. Since when do web designers make McDonalds wages? There offer sounds more like a late night 1-900 advertisement. Do your proper diligence before making a selection. If you budget is not there don’t spend your money! You probably WON’T BENEFIT from a website at this point in your business. And all of the people that post after this should be ashamed that they didn’t research the company that they chose.

HERITAGE WEB SOLUTIONS IS A JOKE! How can one company charge $3000-$5000 for a website and they charge $199. Something is wrong, so STOP SENDING THEM YOUR MONEY!

Dear Mr. Stone, owner heritage web

I feel like I'm going to break down and cry with frustration. Can you please explain to me what is going on. I phoned Heritage web to inquire about a web-page. I spoke to Jay Scoby. Our conversations (I thought) were good. He explained to me that for the web-page it would be $178.00 for a year. I told him that sounded great, and agreed.I have never done this before but it sounded like a good price for what it included. I asked that he not submit the payment until 4/3 as that is when I get paid. We had also discussed $105.00 for a writer to help me as I am not too computer savvy. ALL I said to Jay in regards to that was that it sounded good, I had NOT agreed. On 4/1 I was very upset because the payment went through as well as $105.00 for the writer and it over drew my account. I e-mailed and called Jay several times that day and finally asked one of your people to tap him on the shoulder because I needed to speak to him. I asked him why it went through and his EXACT words were that he was pissed off at the accounting dept. because they put it through early. At that point I was ready to cancel but we talked and he said to help cover my $220.oo in overdraft charges he'd sneak me another page, I agreed, what else was I to do, he said he could not get that back and assured me an awesome web-page. At this point NOTHING'S been done to build any type of web-page. This morning I check my bank account and yet another $199.00 is taken from my account. I called Jay, and just like the day before he says to me, well we discussed that. NO we did not! Now I'm starting to realize what's happening here, Jays getting commission off this and is being very scandalous in going about it. So then I speak to Mike (don't know his last name) he's telling me I can get some news-letter package with a value of over $400.00, that's just great but I could not afford to be spending $500.00 for a web-page not to mention over $200.00 in over-draft charges..I would have NEVER agreed to another $200.00, I did not have it. Oh, also..the $178.00 Jay NEVER once mentioned that it's $178.00 TWICE, I swear, he's making me feel like I have Alzheimer's. Then Mike tells me I've received e-mails (invoices) No, I have not! Im going crazy over here with this. I know what I have in my account and what I can and cant afford, I would not have agreed to all this. Now Mike is telling me that he is as high up as I can go and that they will give me my money back aside from 50% of the $199.00..Im SO upset, this has been the worse experience, the biggest lack of communication I have ever had to deal with. Mr. Stone, I feel like I have seriously been swindled, I'd never do that to anyone, its ruthless...I really did want to move forward with a web-page, I was looking so forward to it, but I feel like I have been very much lied to. Oh, and when Mike was talking about looking at Jays notes, he said it was to come out on 4/1 I told him that Jay is a liar, he had told me yesterday about how it was the accountants fault. Grr...I do hope I get all my money back, this will be a HUGE disappointment to me if not. I think it is terrible that I could have been manipulated so bad. I know how much money I had for food etc..To take care of me kids for the next 2 weeks, this is all going to take me a month to recuperate from. I hope you will check into it. I liked Jay at first, but its become very clear that he's just looking to make a buck, regardless of what it just did to me and my kids. Sincerely, Robyn Davis

I agree with all the above compaints regarding HWS. Starting in 3/07, i began researching web design companies for my new business. That process was carried out off and on until 10/07 when i decided to hire HWS to design my website. At the time, this wonderful website (complaintsboard) did not show up when Heritage Web Solutions was put in the google search box.

Let me just say that my entire web design experience with HWS was a disaster. I had to ask them to assign a new service manager for my project because the original lady never returned calls or emails sooner than 4 days (or later) after i contacted her. After i was assigned a web designer, i found her myspace page and a link to her personal web design site. I was not impressed AT ALL, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and see what she could come up with. That was another disaster. Honestly, talking with her was like talking with a teenager or adolescent. I speak slang when i'm with my friends or family, but never in a professional setting in a phone conversation. My discussions with the web designer were ridiculous. Often times, she didnt follow my instructions which led to multiple unnecessary revisions. The final insult was when the site went live without my approval. Just a horrible experience with HWS. I will NEVER recommend them to anyone.

I think my site finally went live (against my wishes) almost 10 weeks after contacting them. Just awful.

I totally agree with the complaints. I am currently a customer of hertitage web solutions. About 5 mins ago I tried going to my website and something else came up instead of my site. They have taken money out of my account after I asked them not to unless they notify me and what happend they took the money anys and did 3 separate transactions and my account was overdrawn with over drafts. i spoke with the accounting dept about this matter and what they apologize gave me 3 months of free hosting and guess what they took out of my account again another overdraft. i thought I had free hosting for 3 months. I sent in for the company to update my site going on 5 weeks ago guess what my home page is still the same. I wish I would have read this before going with their company. i don't know whats up with my site it comes up as something else now.

Heritage Web Solutions values all of its customers, especially those who have voiced complaints. It is in our best interest to work with these customers to reach a reasonable and fair resolution. In most cases Heritage tries to go beyond what is fair for the company and errors on the side of the upset customer.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for some customers who, no matter what we do, are never truly satisfied. This is especially disheartening, as Heritage has the solid reputation of providing excellent customer service.

Some customers, as illustrated on this complaint website, have resorted to airing their grievances on the public Internet, in hopes of resolving their particular complaint. We do all that we can to help meet a fair resolution to their satisfaction.

However what becomes unfair to us, are those customers who we feel have received everything they have asked for, and more, but then take it upon themselves to have an ongoing vindication against Heritage. To us, there is nothing more we can do to satisfy them. They are who they are. Vindictive and angry people do more harm to themselves than they think they are doing against a company. It is sad but true.

Heritage Web Solutions, with a customer base of over 10,000, receives less than one half of one percent in complaints. That is an impressively low number compared to the standards of today. We certainly would like to have zero complaints, but that is just not realistically possible. There will always be those people who cry foul, no matter what.

What you don’t see on this complaint website are all the positive emails and letters we receive daily from customers who are extremely happy with the service and work we have provided for them.

Heritage Web Solutions is a good, solid custom web design and hosting company that has an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau and the Utah State Department of Commerce. We are ranked in the top 1% of web hosting companies in the United States and have recently been recognized by Inc 500.

If you feel that Heritage Web Solutions is not taking care of you, I would invite you to contact me at my personal email address at ceo@hwsinet.com, and I will personally follow up on your issue.

Warmest Regards,

Brad Stone
CEO/Heritage Web Solutions

Heritage Web Solutions is the absolute worst, I have never received my web site, nor have I received any funds back, empty promises and delay after delay, it has been almost one year since I paid $800.00 and strated dealing with them. It has cost me my buisness.

Linae Jackson

Brad Stone. Wake up. When a customer calls to complain, they are not interested in the many happy clients you suppossedly satisfied and small amount of unsatisfied clients as the people calling are the unhappy people...Tell people the truth. You took on too much business, refund their money and move on. It's the jacking people around and arrogance that piss people off.

Ridicoulous. I have been through 3 designers and still have nothing that resembles a website. We just had commercial site built in 10 days. Heritage was paid in November, it is now March. Don't do it. Wish I would have read the comments first.

Here are my expreiences with Heritage Web Solutions. Feb 2nd Heritage takes my deposit. Nothing done to build my website. I call account manager and leave 4 messages and 3 emails before contact is made. Nothing has been done with my website. Feb 20th called to check on my website, no returned calls. Feb 28th, Heritage debits my account for full price of product, I have nothing. March 1, my account manager is changed, promisses to get things moving, I say great this thing is time sensitive. 4 days, 3 phones calls and 2 email later I find out new account manager is no longer with Heritage(and yes, no retured calls). I'm tranfered to the "Head account manager" and am told to leave message. No returned phone call. Yesterday, I call credit card company to begin a paper trail. Today, mortified to see all of the complaints against Heritage Web Solutions, I thought it was just me. I'll call again, leave emails, its what I do. I'll give them a few more days, however I'm talking to another company to build my website.

I'm an interactive producer for an agency and I've helped create sites for Reebok, Sony, and many local businesses. My friend asked me for help in producing his website and he hired Heritage to design it.

Speaking as a professional who produces websites for a living, IN NO WAY DOES HERITAGE EMPLOY ANY PRODUCTION PROCESS THAT COMES CLOSE TO THE BASIC INDUSTRY STANDARD. I'm talking about things like client review/input, ongoing communication, even knowledgeable designers. The "project manager"(who I had to make repeated attempts to contact), could not carry a conversation with the most simple production-speak. Basically they made my friend sign a contract, ignored us for a month, and crapped out a POS site that a high school kid could've made. If you don't believe me:

The above comment hit it on the nail!

Basically if you sign up for Heritage Web Design, you are using them as your middle man to India.

If you run a Small Business and you choose Heritage, you are basically saying that your company image is worth about the price of an Ipod at $199. R U SERIOUS!

Do some research, spend some money, and get a good product!

How did you make out, I'm now having the same problems.

I have read through all these complaints and I have to offer a little advice for people seeking web development services.

1) You will not get a solid website properly coded, designed and delivered to your specifications for $199...or even starting at $199. This is equivalent to purchasing a brand new car for $999. Please research out going prices and rates and you will realizing you are dealing with a web design chop shop.

2) Look at the company's portfolio and decide for yourself. The level and quality of design will reflect on whether or not the company even bothers to keep up with industry trends, standards and technologies.

3) Look at company's own design and source code of their pages. If their coding style is sloppy, messy, buggy and their own company's design looks like it was from 1995...than that is what you will receive from your final product.

4) Ask other folks who have used their services and see how their experiences went. If you are company seeking to hire a consultancy service, find a company that you feel you can build a long term relationship with. Web chop shops are the ### of the web industry and you will not find a good relationship with them.

5) Do some research on what kind of services you need. If it seems like they use a ton of buzzwords, research out these terms.

6) Again...web design and development services simply do not start at $199! I can't emphasize that enough. You'd be wary of a brand new HD TV that went for $300 now would you?

I have been able to resolve most of the customer's complaints from this website. There are those customers that never are completely satisfied no matter how much we tried.

So, If you have a complaint, please communicate directly with me at: CEO@hwsinet.com

My personal commitment is to make sure that we are totally fair and equitable with you.

Warm Regards,

Brad Stone
CEO/Heritage Web Solutions

People, did you even go through their website before you made their "business" decision?

This is the payscale they offer to freelancers working for them http://www.hitfreelance.com/index.html
and here is how much they pay their "technical" staff http://www.hwsinet.com/careers/

If your website is the cornerstone of your business, do you want it to be built by someone who doesn't mind earning $13-17/hour doing a job which requires a great deal of knowledge and expertise? Is that how much your car mechanic, doctor, lawyer and accountant charge you? Is that how much you charge your customers? Would you like to experience a $17/hour root canal. That will give you something to complain about.

And $20 dollars per page if you are a freelancer working for them? It takes at least 4 to 10 hours to design and build a single page layout if you know what you are doing. You can do it much faster if you are clueless. Which is what you get for $20 per page (or $2 to $5/hour, in case you need it spelled out).

Do the math and do your homework. Then open up your phonebook and call your local professional designer.

Large corporations (as does anyone who values his/her hard-earned bucks) hire web designers to design their websites. If you asked around and every single designer told you that that your work would cost you around $1500, what kind of reasoning did you use to convince yourself that somebody can do the same work for $150.

You're asking a plumber to give you a quote for a tea party your are setting up for your friends and business associates. Of course the plumber will be happy to serve tea at your party - as soon as he's done unclogging your toilet. What is that strange taste, I wonder?

You got what you deserved. If you are not an expert, hire one. If you don't have the money - go earn it first or get a loan. Nothing is free. And that includes high quality business websites. Oh, and if you did ask people for quotes and they were kind enough to waste their time on you, don't forget to at least thank them for trying to help you.

And yes, HWS is a good company if you want a website that nobody is going to visit, but it's "affordable", right?

I am surprised at the comments I have read against Heritage Web Solutions. I have dealt with them for a year now. They delivered what they promised, and, everytime I called for technical support, I had no problem going through and getting a solution to my problem. I have no complaint against this company.

Dr.Andrew Veronis

Took 5 months to get site working. Very poor callback service. Would leave messages and would take 3-4 days for a returned call. They charged me $60.00 a month for hosting and the site was not even up and working. Poor service, poor site. go somewhere else for your web site needs.

I'm a victim of Heritage Web Solutions as well. I normally search for customers review before I buy anything, but I made a mistake not doing it about Heritage and read this blog and many other blogs about Heritage reputation before.
First of all, take a look on example of websites they show on their portifolio, most of them are not longer with Heritage.
Second before you give them your credit card number to close any deal with them, ask them to send a copy of their TERM OF SERVICE, it's a document protecting them to take your money, and they know what they are doing.
Here is some lines of their TERMS OF SERVICE.

HERITAGE WEB SOLUTIONS ( part of their terms of service to protect them, and give them the right to take our money)

LINE-29

29. Cancellation Fee and Refund Policy
WEBSITE DESIGN/DEVELOPMENT - Refunds of the fees paid for development of the website may be issued on accounts cancelled within 90 days of the initial sale and prior to the completion of the website according to the following schedule:

A) A minimum of a 50% cancellation fee will be retained by HWS on cancelled accounts even if no work has been started and no content yet submitted by the Client.

B) A minimum of a 75% cancellation fee will be retained by HWS on cancelled accounts if work has been presented to the Client; or HWS has made multiple attempts to work with the Client, and Client has not responded to those attempts.

C) A 100% cancellation fee will be retained by HWS and NO REFUND issued if any changes and/or modifications requested by the Client have been completed by HWS. No Refund will be issued on any website cancelled after services have been rendered, including but not limited to, the design work having been completed and/or the website taken live.

D) 100% cancellation fee will be retained and NO REFUND will be issued by HWS if Client cancels after 90 days from the initial sale.

MINIMUM CANCELLATION FEE – Client agrees that a minimum cancellation fee of 50% will be retained by HWS on all cancelled accounts even if no work has been started. The cancellation fee is charged to compensate HWS for up-front expenses and services rendered, including but not limited to, costs incurred for the purchase of domain name(s) for developing the website, securing server space, creating the temporary website or space saver, employee expenses, marketing, and overhead costs.

ENHANCEMENT SALES - A 100% cancellation fee will be retained by HWS and NO REFUND will be issued once work has begun on any enhancements purchased, including, but not limited to, databases, programming, logos, flash, galleries, rollovers, e-commerce stores etc. Client agrees that a minimum cancellation fee of 50% will be retained by HWS on all cancelled enhancement purchases if cancelled within 90 days of the enhancement sale and if work has not yet begun. NO REFUND will be issued by HWS if client cancels after 90 days from the enhancement sale. Enhancements or additional services purchased after the initial sale are separate purchases and are in addition to and separate from the original sale. If a client cancels an enhancement the original sale is not cancelled.

Take a look and see, how well they try protect themself.

LINE-41

41. Negative Comments/Slander
Client specifically agrees not to engage in negative comments or slander regarding HWS, including but not limited to publishing, or causing to be published, complaints or derogatory comments regarding HWS in any format, including but not limited to, print, newspaper, television, radio or on internet complaint sites, blogs or other public internet forums. Should there be a breach of this condition HWS will be entitled to liquidated damages in the amount of $2,500.00 for each publishing or posting. If said breach occurs on an internet complaint site each hit to that website will be considered an individual breach of this condition, and subject to additional liquidated damages of $100 per occurrence. Further, HWS shall be entitled to litigate this matter, and obtain the money damages together with injunctive relief. The prevailing party to that litigation shall be entitled to an award of attorney’s fees.

Do you want to read the whole Heritage TERMS OF SERVICE?
Here it is, I found the link for it: http://www.heritagewebdesign.com/tos.html

By the way, they sell a shopping cart which is distribuited for free ZEN CART ™, and the enhancements (modules ) for the cart is available all over the internet.
They charge monthly $45.00 +, to host your Website, which you can find the same or better hosting service out there from $5.00 - $7.00 month, if you get a wesite with them, you have to use their hosting service for at least ONE YEAR, so they will take antoher $600.00 from your pocket guaranted !
If you still want to go with them, it is up to you, but I wish I could have read these blogs before.